Militant Islam Monitor > Weblog > Muslim doctors and health care workers who aim to kill not heal - aiding and abetting global jihad by working in the US and abroad

Muslim doctors and health care workers who aim to kill not heal - aiding and abetting global jihad by working in the US and abroad

July 5, 2007

The arrest of Muslim doctors in recent terror plot should come as no surprise. Islamists have been using the medical profession for years to wage jihad and raise money for terrorist organisations. Others exploit their positions in the health profession to recruit non Muslim volunteers to go overseas to treat jihad fighters while first aid workers turned suicide bombers have used ambulances to travel to their targets. Jihadist doctors have not been limited to those abroad -one group of doctors have raised millions for terrorist activities while others in the United States have been jailed for aiding and abetting jihadists. In a video shown on the BBC last week a UK medical student in Afghanistan was shown to be actively earning doctors to use their skills for jihad. The video, made several years ago, showed that doctors were actively being recruiting for terrorism. The terror attacks in the UK had been hinted at by an Al Qaeda chief in Baghdad according to a this account:

But a worrying, almost prophetic, story emerged Wednesday from Baghdad: a Church of England clergyman, Andrew White, who is president for the Foundation of Reconciliation in the Middle East, based in Iraq, said he was at a conference in Amman, Jordan, in April when he was taken aside by a Sunni religious leader.

"I listened to him for 40 minutes, and he went on about how they were going to destroy Britons and Americans and how they were going to be doing more in the U.K. and U.S., and he finished by saying 'those who cure you will kill you,' " White said.

He said he did not fully understand what the man meant, though he did report the comment to a British diplomat. The words "Those who cure you will kill you" have been splashed across British newspapers.

MIM:What better facade for terrorists then the medical profession following in the foot steps of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahari (who used the guise of doctor on a humanitarian mission and travelled and the auspices of the International Islamic Relief Organisation [IIR0] and continues to be both personal physician and second in command to Osama Bin Laden?

"[One must know about Ayman Al -Zawahiri]...if you want to know more about the state of Islamic terrorism today, it is important to be familiar with his name. Al-Zawahiri was the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group which he merged with Osama bin-Laden's al-Queda group to create the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.

Today he is Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, serves as al Queda's ideological leader, and is the most likely to take over when bin Laden dies. Some, in fact, argue that bin Laden never would have been quite the terrorist leader without al-Zawahiri."

Born in 1953, al-Zawahiri's family was quite prominent and religiously conservative. He is remembered has having been a quiet and well-read student, but that may have changed in 1967, when Israel defeated the combined armies of several Arab nations. This was a watershed time for many Muslims in the Middle East, and al-Zawahiri was no different. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the age of just fourteen, and in 1979, he joined the even more radical Islamic Jihad.

After his release al-Zawahiri tried to return to medicine again, but the political climate was unwelcoming to a radical such as himself and he eventually fled to Afghanistan, which had by that point become a gathering point for Muslim radicals from all over the world. There he was able to put his medical skills to work by treating Arab fighters wounded in combat against the Soviet army. It was at this time that an interesting personal connection was made: al-Zawahiri met Dr. Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian Islamist who had once been an instructor for Osama bin Laden at the King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Zawahiri was sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian court in 1999 for his role in organizing a variety of deadly terrorist attacks, but in particular the massacre of fifty-eight tourists in Luxor in 1997. The U.S. State Department currently has a $5 million reward out for information leading to his arrest". http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/islam/blfaq_islam_zawahiri.htm

Another recent example of "doctors of terror" is Abdulaziz Rantissi -The pediatician head of Hamas who was killed in a targetted Israeli raid. According to his obituary from a pro Hamas website:

"He trained as a doctor in Egypt, and later became a paediatrician working in Gaza. During his time in Egypt, Rantissi was influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood and he returned to Gaza a committed Islamist. Throughout the 1980s he was at the forefront of tax strikes and other low-key forms of protest. He spent several years in Israeli prisons, and was a founder member of Hamas in 1987.

A married man with six children, he declined to use safe houses. After the Yassin assassination, he remarked that everyone had to die sooner or later. "It's death, whether by killing or by cancer. Nothing will change. If by Apache [helicopter] or by cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache," he said."

MIM: Jihadist doctors have also been arrested and convicted in the United States. One of them Rafiq Abdus Sabir an emergency room doctor and convert to Islam living in Boca Raton Florida was sentenced to 30 years in prison for swearing an oath of allegiance to Al Qaeda and scouting locations in Long Island to set up a jihad camp. Oncologist Rafil Dhafir who was jailed in 2004 on terrorism charges [and health insurance fraud). Dhafir fundraised for his Iraq "charity" at the Islamic Center of Boca Raton where Sabir was a congregant. Another doctor who visiting the Islamic Center of Boca Raton was Kassan Baiev whose claim to fame is saving the life of Chechen leader Shamil Basayev who masterminding the Beslan massacre. Baiev wrote a book about his experiences as a doctor in Chechnya called "The Oath- A Physician Under Fire" and became a minor celebrity. Left wing and anti Israel campaigner Vanessa Redgrave helped him raise money for a "children's charity".

" Vanessa Redgrave's fundraising for Chechyna (read Kavkaz) together with a doctor who boasts about operating on terrorist Shamil Basayev, who masterminded the Beslan massacre, is more proof of how the far left and Islamo facism have openly aligned to help Al Qaeda by cynically exploiting 'humanitarian' causes. Baiev's fundraised at the terror linked Islamic Cultural Center of London while in the UK. An account of his operation on Chechen jihadist Basayev was posted on the Salaam.org website whose webmaster Iqbal Asaria is a known Al Qaeda operative. http://www.salaam.co.uk/charities/10-10-05.php

Even more perverse is that the doctor Baiev who helped Basayev , who caused the deaths of more then 300 children and their parents, is campaigning for a scam 'charity' with the name ' International Committee for the Children of Chechnya.

MIM: A group of doctors in Hernando, Florida admitted to providing millions of dollars in terrorism funding and several were connected and jailed in the Sami Al Arian case. Al Arian is awaiting deportation after being convicted for being head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and responsible for orchestrating attacks which killed one hundred people and killed scores of others. In addition Al Arian brought Ramadan Abdullah Shallah to the University of South Florida. In 1995 Shallah left Florida to take over leadership of PIJ after the previous leader Fathi Shikaki was killed by the IDF.http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3028

MIM:According to the wife of Dr.Mohammed Adel Eldin, the 65 physicians in and around Hernando County "haven't killed anyone" but they have aided and abetted those that did with millions of dollars.Dr. Ghada Eldin's mendacious assertion went unchallenged by the press.

A simple Google search reveals that several local physicians and their employees have used their positions and practices to fund raise for terrorism. Funds were also raised for terror related groups by the members of the mosque which had received county aid that Mary Ann Hogan objected to. Members of the mosque had rallied around Al Arian, despite his documented ties to terrorism and the fact that he had been videotaped a Islamic Association of Palestine rally where he shouted "Let us damn America,let us damn Israel, let us damn them and their allies". Not surprisingly Al Arian was also active in CIAIR..http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=671

MIM:Illinois' [tax] records show Brooksville orthopedic surgeon Imad "Ed" Tarabishy [a founder of the Hernando mosque, who also teaches there] has been the most generous Florida benefactor of Global Relief and Benevolence International Foundation [BIF], in the past five years giving at least $786,000 dollars.

"Two Muslim charities in particular - the Global Relief Foundation and the Benevolence International Foundation - received $1.3-million from 15 local doctors…Imad Tarabishy, a local orthopedic surgeon who sometimes delivers the weekly sermon at the mosque, gave nearly $800,000 alone." [source, St. Petersburg Times, http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/18/Hernando/Muslims_find_strength.shtml]

More then a dozen other current and former physicians at Brookville's Oak Hill Hospital where Tarabishy is on staff, gave another $521,750. That included $110,000 from Tarabishy's brother, a Florida-licensed surgeon who practices in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates [source, http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/525] BIF has been designated as a terrorist funding group by the U.S. Department of Treasury, under Executive Order 13224 and also by the United Nations.

"Benevolence International Foundation (BIF-USA), incorporated in the State of Illinois in 1992, was a U.S., tax-exempt, not-for-profit organization whose stated purpose was to conduct humanitarian relief projects throughout the world. BIF-USA's financial accounts were blocked pending investigation in December 2001, and the charity was fully designated by the United States on November 19, 2002, and in the United Nations on November 21, 2002 The three closely linked but separately incorporated entities of BIF-USA, Benevolence International Fund (BIF-Canada), Bosanska Idealna Futura (BIF-Bosnia), and their branch offices were all designated simultaneously. BIF operated around the world in Bosnia, Chechnya, Pakistan, China, Ingushetia, Russia, and other nations. Enaam Arnaout, BIF's Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors, has been convicted in the United States for operating BIF as a racketeering enterprise. Arnaout claimed that he did not know bin Laden personally, yet substantial evidence documented the close relationship between Arnaout and Usama bin Laden." [source - http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/key-issues/protecting/charities_execorder_13224-b.shtml]

MIM:Some of the Hernando area doctors and assistants who are documented as helping to fund and facilitate terrorism are Hatim Fariz, Dr. Ayam Osman, Dr.Samir and Dr.Samar Shakfeh and surgeon Imad Tarbaishy. Dr. Tarabishy is also on the board of the North American Islamic Trust, an institution aimed at spreading Wahhabist (fundamentalist) Islam in North American.He was among the doctors who founded the Barclay Street mosque together with doctors Nazir Hamoui, Husam Shuayb, Mahmaljy.

( Another organisation connected to NAIT, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) issued a statement after Sami Al Arian's arrest condemning the U.S. government.)

Not surprisingly, all of these doctors worked on behalf of Sami Al Arian and the PIJ via their mosques and Islamic centers and some Hernando doctors were named at the terror trial and were also included in the indictment as having raised money for the terror group run by Al Arian, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

According to an article on Tampa Muslims ties to to terrorism:

Samar, (Shakfeh) along with physician Ayman Osman, run two area medical centers. Their business came under scrutiny, when it was discovered that the manager of the facilities, Hatem Fariz, was working with Sami Al-Arian to finance overseas suicide operations for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Osman, who had previously given over $30,000 to the Global Relief Foundation – a large Islamic charity shut down by the U.S. for funding Al-Qaeda and Hamas – has been questioned for his ties to Al-Arian, as well. Osman was on the Board of Directors of the children's school founded by Al-Arian, the Islamic Academy of Florida (IAF). IAF had its government funded student vouchers revoked, in 2003, for being part of the "PIJ enterprise." Shakfeh's parents, whose names appear on courtroom documents with regard to the Al-Arian trial, were also active in IAF. Samar was President of the academy's PTA, and both had donated thousands of dollars to the school. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21884

Name: Hatim Naji FarizBackground: Born in Puerto Rico, a resident of Spring Hill and a manager for a medical clinic. Fariz was an alleged PIJ member and he allegedly ran an Illinois-based charity called the American Muslim Care Network.http://reports.tbo.com/reports/alarian/

A Palestinian charity at issue in the terror-support case against Sami Al-Arian and three co-defendants was designated as a terrorist front Wednesday by the U.S. Treasury Department.

The Elehssan Society distributes medical supplies and other relief in the Occupied Territories.

In a news release, the Treasury Department said it has seen information showing the society keeps a list of families tied to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad that receive payments, including relatives of suicide bombers.

"Elehssan masquerades as a charity, while actually helping to finance Palestinian Islamic Jihad's acts of terror against the Israeli people and other innocents," Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey wrote.

Much of the material cited in the Treasury Department's news release appears to come from documents seized by Israel. The statement refers repeatedly to "information available to the U.S." in explaining the charity's designation.

Al-Arian and the co-defendants are accused of helping to finance and organize the terrorist group, which is responsible for more than 100 deaths in attacks, including at least three Americans. Their trial is scheduled to begin May 16.

The indictment calls Elehssan "the fund-raising arm of the PIJ in Gaza and the West Bank" and claims it used an Internet site to solicit donations.

The charity received hundreds of thousands of dollars from abroad in mid-2002, the statement said. Some went to a summer camp allegedly used to recruit suicide bombers.

In a June 2002 conversation prosecutors say was picked up on secret wiretaps, defendants Hatim Naji Fariz and Ghassan Ballut discussed a Palestinian Islamic Jihad member's desperate financial state, the indictment said, with Fariz blaming Elehssan and other groups "because they know who their members are and they are supposed to take care of them."

The indictment also cites a November 2002 wire transfer by Fariz, Ballut and Al-Arian to a man linked to the charity.

Federal Public Defender Fletcher Peacock, who represents Fariz, and Al-Arian's attorney William Moffitt could not be reached for comment.

In an affidavit for a related immigration case signed in October 2000, Palestinian scholar and legislator Ziad Abu Amr said the Ihsan Charity was among a number of nonviolent political and social institutions run by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Abu Amr's statement is the basis for an obstruction of justice count in the indictment.

Children's charities have also been used for facades for terrorism supporting activities.Most notorious of all is the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund - run by Riad Hamad, whose medical supplies coordinator Rosemary Lewis aka Shadya Hantouli ran a website gloryifying suicide bombers called "Palestine4Ever". The PCWF logo with a child showing the V sign was on the home page of the website. The site was shut down after an article appeared sparking public outrage. Lewis aka Hantouli is also the spokeswoman for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund [PCRF] run by Steve Sosebee.The Palestine 4 Ever site was also connected to the Islamic Center of Boca Raton via Lamyaa Hashim -the co wife of the then Imam Ibrahim Dremali who ran a Hamas "charity" called Health Resource Center Palestine" [HRCP] which fundraised for Hamas. Hashim wrote poetry lauding suicide bombers which were placed on the Palestine4Ever website.]

According to the article "Recruiting for JIhad":

Shadya has a close relationship with two different Islamic children's charities, as medical coordinator for the Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund and a spokesperson for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. (The Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund is noted on palestine4ever.net with a huge graphic, complete with an image of a lit bomb fuse.) What kind of children's "welfare" group would employ a spokesperson with a soft spot for child martyrs?

The Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund (PCWF) is one of a multitude of Islamic children's charities whose stated goal is "to improve the living standards of the children of Palestine." One of the ways the PCWF has demonstrated this was to conduct a drawing contest in October of 2002, whereby children won money for drawing gruesome pictures depicting anti-Semitic and violent images. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8394

MIM: The use of a charity and volunteers to help Hamas fighters can be seen in "Humanitarian Terror and PCRF :Dr.Imad Tabry & Steve Sosebee :From Miami's Holy Cross Hospital to Hamas:

"Healing Hearts" cardiac program " as a front for healing Hamas terrorists ?

If all the newspaper articles lauding Miami doctor Imad Tabry, and Steve Sosebee's work at the Shifa hospital in Gaza for the Palestine Children's Relief fund were bundled together, they would probably fill the compartments of several suicide bomb belts .

In 2000 Dr. Tabry led a group of surgeons to Gaza whose mission was described by the PCRF as follows:

"In the first week of the Al Aqsa Intifada the PCRF sent a team of 8 surgeons from Fort Lauderdale went to the Gaza Strip to do open heart surgery on sick patients. For the first week they treated gunshot victims...The PCRF also sent $300,000 worth of medical supplies ... (the team was )led by Dr. Imad Tabry"... The PCRF will also send this group to Gaza again "... Tabry is also a member of the PCRF board of directors.

American Trains Nurses in Palestine, LebanonIn March, Lynn Grass, a registered nurse from San Diego,arrived in Palestine to being a month long mission in which she will provide expert training in neonatal intensive care nursing to four Palestinian institutions in the Middle East. This is the second mission for the PCRF, as she went in 2000 to Lebanon to train nurses as Al-Hamshiry Hospital in Sidon. From March 11-17th, she worked at the new neonatal intensive care unit at Shifa Hospital in Gaza. http://www.pcrf.net/medical/misc.html

"Suicide bombing is not the worst thing going on, not that I condone it," she said. "The oppression of people is the problem and there's no way to show that because the press isn't allowed in or they are closed off to areas where things are happening".

"The only way to realize what's happening is to go. It's hard to imagine and it's hard to grapple and grasp what they've been going through for so long. It may not make sense but the only way these people can control a part of their life is to be able to control their death." http://hollandsentinel.com/stories/042302/loc_042302001.shtml